Blood Neon-Chapter 9

Chapter 9
Fragrant Chicken, Afternoon
The source of the aroma was not far from the cellphone shop.
It was a roast chicken storefront. Chickens coated with spices were neatly hung one by one on iron racks, and the scent it gave off had already conquered the entire street.
The charred walls faintly showed the age of the shop. Even passersby who did not buy anything would mostly pause briefly in front of the store to take a few breaths of the aroma as a sign of respect.
Following the enchanting smell, Lin Ying walked slowly toward the roast chicken shop, memories flashing through her mind.
When she was a child, there had also been a shop like this in her hometown, both in style and in aroma. That had been back when she was still in elementary school. Her grandmother would occasionally buy one before lunch to bring home, serving it as the meat dish for the little granddaughter who had just returned from school… Strands of nostalgia from another life surged into her heart, leaving the girl lost in thought.
Without realizing it, she squeezed through a layer of the crowd and then looked at the prices on the shop’s signboard, starting to calculate her budget.
“A roast chicken costs 28 yuan. If I eat two a day, I can eat for about seven days.”
“No, wait. I also have to count the price of cola. One chicken needs to go with a can of cola. Adding to that the three cans of daily rationed cola, at two yuan a can, that’s 66 in total. I can eat for exactly six days…”
Right now, Lin Ying truly had a bit of a desire. That was simply to eat this every day for the next six days, and when she had spent her last cent, she would drink the final can of cola and then end it all herself…
…Or something like that. Just kidding.
Before, because her funds often faced the threat of running out, she could not indulge at will. But today was different. Lin Ying moved to the shelf, took a deep breath of the aroma, and then spoke to the middle-aged shopkeeper lady.
“Hello, one freshly roasted chicken please, with a bag of peanuts.”
“Alright, that’s thirty in total. Do you want me to cut up the chicken for you?”
“No need. Pack it whole, thank you.”
With that, she handed over two large bills.
…
“Chomp, chomp, chomp, gulp, chomp chomp…”
In front of the girl, who in an ungraceful posture was presenting a fanservice of sorts to the air, torn paper bags, plastic bags filled with bones, and empty cans were scattered all over the ground.
After drinking a large mouthful of cola, the girl let out a long burp.
Feeling that she had been a bit improper, Lin Ying blushed slightly.
Thanks to her parents’ upbringing, she had always cared about table manners while eating. She always paid attention to her movements at the table, not making any noise, and would never speak with food in her mouth.
It could be said that Lin Ying had been professionally trained. No matter how delicious something was, she would never lose her composure.
Unless she couldn’t hold back.
……There was nothing she could do about it—roast chicken, a weapon of mass culinary destruction on par with fried chicken, was simply too fragrant. Just look at the piece of meat in her hand: the skin was perfectly cooked—done but not burnt. All the excess oil had long since dripped away under high heat, leaving behind only the concentrated essence, evenly infused into the tender, pale meat. With each bite, the aroma locked within mixed with the sensation of muscle fibers tearing apart layer by layer, spreading across the palate. Her mouth was filled with joy; her whole body, down to her toes, was steeped in satisfaction.
When she took several hearty bites and reached peak enjoyment, she would take a perfectly timed sip of ice-cold cola. First, it washed away the remaining grease and faint gaminess in her mouth. Then, another small sip followed, allowing the bursting carbonation to cleanse her taste buds—reviving their senses, breaking free from the dominance of heavy seasoning, and clearing the way for continued enjoyment. This way, she wouldn’t grow tired of the taste no matter how much meat she ate, and every single bite remained a pure, 100% delicious experience.
—Long ago, when celestial maidens descended to the mortal world, they used to say, “Good heavens, must chop the feet,” referring to how food could be so delicious that they had no choice but to chop off their trembling feet, quivering from excitement and bliss. Of course, any immortal who actually went that far would likely face serious scrutiny at the Celestial Customs, suspected of illegally smuggling celestial hooves into the human world and just like that, they’d become fugitives on the run from Heaven itself.
……
Lin Ying looked at the bag of chicken bones and empty cans in front of her and licked her fingers a few times, still not quite satisfied.
Even the best of meals eventually come to an end, just as even the strongest of cities will one day crumble into dust.
Having more or less entered a state that could be called “gourmet sage mode,” Lin Ying sighed with a touch of melancholy.
She casually reached both hands into a mass of writhing darkness beneath her. Using her true form, she gave her hands a top-level cleaning treatment.
The deep shadow wasn’t cold inside—on the contrary, as Lin Ying’s hands were tightly wrapped by countless tendrils, a sense of reassuring warmth spread from her fingertips. If one had to describe it, it was like tucking chilly hands between one's thighs to warm them.
As a human, Lin Ying could feel the sensation of her hands touching each individual tendril—warm, not slimy, more akin to human flesh. At the same time, her true form also sensed the feeling of tightly gripping a pair of small hands with several tendrils. The mutual sensation was strangely fascinating.
It was like how, if someone slept in a weird position and woke up with a hand completely numb and lifeless, touching themselves with it would feel oddly disconcerting. In contrast, what Lin Ying felt now was the complete opposite: something that should have felt strange instead felt exactly like holding her own hand. It was one of the more inexplicable and novel experiences of this body.
……
The autumn wind whooshed through the city, still chasing and tumbling, taking countless leaves along with it to dance in the air.
A black-haired girl in a white dress lay on a spread-out piece of cardboard, her face resting sideways on her folded arms, quietly watching the scenery.
Her untied black hair hung loosely behind her, silky and cascading like a waterfall against her body. The warm afternoon sun cloaked the city in a golden yellow cape. Feeling the warmth on her back, Lin Ying squinted her eyes, seemingly slipping into sleep.
She couldn’t help but think of a scene: crocodiles sunbathing by the river in nature documentaries.
The cold-blooded predators, after a big meal, burped contentedly, dragged their heavy bodies onto the shore, and with no real threat from predators, began basking under the sun… It was probably a scene just like this. Although, when crocodiles hunted in groups, they usually bit down on limbs underwater and then began rolling violently in a death spin to dismember their prey through sheer torque before slowly chewing it up. Unlike her—she just swallowed things whole. Not nearly as crude, violent, or unsightly...
As her thoughts drifted between these odd notions, half of Lin Ying’s consciousness began to fade.
……
Sleep could be considered a crucial part of everyday human life.
Once deep sleep began, cerebrospinal fluid would begin to repeatedly flush through the brain, producing an effect similar to rebooting—a cleanup process where all the accumulated mental junk generated during a day’s worth of intense biological computing would be cleared into the recycle bin.
No matter what her body truly was, at least right now Lin Ying’s human form was capable of sleep. When her body fell asleep, the only perspective that remained was that of her true form within the shadow. This viewpoint saw the world in two dimensions—it felt like she had only one eye open, and that too behind a screen.
This "screen" was positioned below her body, so by default, her viewpoint resembled that of a frog at the bottom of a well. Of course, it was a super-plus-sized version of that. And if she wanted, she could shift the angle a bit to catch glimpses of the scene to her sides. The total field of view added up to a solid bit more than 2π steradians.
Her true form in the shadows didn’t sleep. So this was the only way for Lin Ying to relive the experience of sleeping like a human. But this sensation of watching herself sleep was kind of novel too—seeing her chest rise and fall steadily while feeling the reassuring comfort of mutual perception.